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Sidetracks - Episode VI

Sidetracks is a collaborative project featuring various essays, videos, reviews, or other Internet content that we want to share with each other. All past and current links for the Sidetracks project can be found in our Sidetracks tag.

➝ Gwenda Bond on teen characters in YA: The Fast-Talking Smarties. 'My suggested rule of thumb is that if you'd never say, "That's just not how adults are" about an adult character (and, really, you wouldn't, would you?), then don't vary the same theme about teen characters in YA.' THIS. This times a million. The fact that every other review of The Fault in Our Stars includes some sort of variation of "the characters are so unrealistic! Teens are not that smart, and they definitely don't sit around having philosophical discussions" has been driving.me.nuts.

➝ 10 Things Not to Say to Childfree People. I think I've heard all of those, though my absolute favourite is missing: the ever-recurring comments about how unnatural it is for a woman not to want children. One of these days the gender police is going to come for me.

SA: [Exhales] I mean, certainly one of the things I was talking about: I'm a big fan, too. I'm a fanboy! So, you know the way in which they love what I do? I feel the same way about all sorts of artists. I may create the stuff, but I'm also a huge fan. So, I mean, I understand.NC: Wouldn't it be terrible if you weren't a huge fan?SA: There are a lot of people like that.NC: I know! I think about those people all the time. I think, God, you must be so lonely. You're not excited about things. Or people who believe that artists have to be completely tortured to do anything good. I hate that stereotype, too. It's destructive.

➝ And via that last post, I discovered Blessing All the Birds, a tumblr whose description just abut made me swoon: they're a feminist fan project focused on the work of songwriter Joanna Newsom. We see Newsom's work as feminist literature and our goal is to provide it the serious critical analysis it deserves, as well as to discuss her unique place in popular culture. !!1456@#!1 And look, look, they have an essay on Go Long and Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber!!!1 I'm in love.

➝ Elaine Showalter writes about her favourite contemporary American female novelists and the problematic relationship between the critical establishment and women's writing.

➝ Dreaming Awake: N.K. Jemisin on being a woman of colour and a fantasy writer. And how dare I disrespect that history, profane all my ancestors' suffering and struggles, by giving up the freedom to imagine that they've won for me.. I now really want the essay anthology she wrote this for, The Miseducation of the Writer.

➝ The short lists have been announced for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and the Man Asian Literary prize. I like prize lists, because they give you a place to start with areas of literature that you're unfamiliar with and now I have a few more titles written by Asian and South Asian authors (that I would probably never have heard about otherwise) to check out.

➝ Ari talks about The Birthday Party pledge, a project which asks readers to make a commitment to 'give multicultural books as gifts' to children for one year. I don't have any kids in my life, so I'm passing on the message.

➝ The Intergalactic Academy is the first place I saw anyone talk about 'Daughter of Centaurs' having a white washed cover. The Booksmugglers confirm. White washing covers is a really crap move.

'Daughter of Centaurs' is published by Random House for Young Readers and their contact page is here if you want to write to them about this incident of white washing (I'd guess a letter to the children's publishing address would be best, but please let me know if you think another address is better).

What is all the more infuriating about such prohibitions are the breathtaking hypocrisies they contain. Sometimes it seems that those most likely to mock anger as a means of dismissing and silencing legitimate female claims of dissatisfaction are those most likely to utilize the politics of resentment and victimization for personal or ideological gain.

No! Really? Wow, who would have thought? This makes me want an entire book on this topic that's not as obvious. Do either of you have any recommendations?

➝ One month after the end of 2011, I am getting around to reading all the Best of 2011 books. Orbit Books posted a round up to several. I love best of lists, or...maybe I just love lists. I need to go through all the blogs I'm subscribed to and find their best of lists. Or people could link me to theirs! GIVE ME ALL THE LISTS so the March We Want It! post will be even larger. \o/

➝ I have a nook color (which I like) but I hated not being able to move the books I bought between my nook, my laptop and iPhone depending on where I was going to be or what I was going to be doing (when your 3GS iPhone battery is better than the nook, that's an issue). This resulted in me....not buying books, which was ¼ of what I planned to do with it (the other ¾ going to fanfic). Catherine linked me to It's time for a unified ebook format and the end of DRM:

Some publishers don't want to hear this, but the truth is that DRM can be hacked. It does not eliminate piracy. It not only fails as a piracy deterrent, but it also introduces restrictions that make ebooks less attractive than print books. We've all read a print book and passed it along to a friend. Good luck doing that with a DRM'd ebook! What publishers don't seem to understand is that DRM implies a lack of trust. All customers are considered thieves and must be treated accordingly.

The problem I have with moving to digital books is DRM (it was my biggest problem with iTunes) is how long devices last. What's the average age for a tech device these days? The odds of me wanting to move my stuff elsewhere, to new devices completely in two years, maybe not one owned by B&N, are high. I paid for these files. They are mine, and DRM tells me "these files are yours...sort of! Sorry about those strings but you can store them in the CLOUD OF INEVITABLE FAILURE!" Even then, I believe I should be able to do what I want with them in ways that don't actively harm an author's livelihood because ultimately I like authors and want them to write more books, so it doesn't make sense for me to strip the DRM and create 95728462 torrents, laughing manically all the while. Therefore, DRM is still on my list for treating me like that's my plan. Also, the fact that the nook color has a ~secret internal memory~ you can't access unless you root the device is so aggravating — I can't even access the location where the files are stored on my nook to control the device I bought. Screw you, Barnes & Noble, and your hidden memory, your insistence on treating me like a thief when I just want to read the book I bought on multiple devices. Thanks, I guess, for using epubs, which makes my life easier after I strip the damn thing of DRM so I can actively use the files I purchase in ways convenient to my life and not controlled and directed by your product and company.

It's difficult — I've chosen to support B&N as a bookselling company because there are no independent booksellers in my city and B&N remains the only bookseller that's not Hastings (super rude every time I've been in there) or a retail chain not dedicated to books. Not for the first time, I really regret that.

➝ New blog I discovered courtesy of The Book Smugglers and Ana: slatebreakers. Awesome premise. I am jealous of blogs that can develop a very specific review style with sections and have it work. Intergalactic Academy is another blog who has this same type of great review style. I can't even settle on a solid rating system that doesn't change day to day.

JSYK, the dude who runs the Animals... tumblr has said some truly horrible things about women who have abortions and non-white women, to the extent that I can't find any enjoyment in reading his tumblr anymore. (I would google and provide screencaps etc., but I'm really not in the mood to look at those words again.)

Oh, I was absolutely not aware of that. Thanks for letting me know and I can go hunt down those comments for myself. Not sure what to do about the link, here - edit, with commentary do you think ladies?

You could link to this comment thread, because adding commentary around the link is going to lack the context of the warning we received and some people just want to enjoy an animal tumblr without being faced with ass-hat behavior of the artist, which they should be allowed to do. Right after the link/your commentary, put something like: "eta: Problematic update about this link" and link to this URL. That allows people to choose whether they want to read an animal tumblr, or learn about the animal tumblr's skeletons.

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Who We Are

Renay is a long time member of slash fandom and nerdfighteria who stumbled into book blogging by accident and decided she liked arguing with herself at length and in capslock — it was all downhill from there. more? &raquo

Ana is a reader who’s been blogging about books since early 2007. After several abandoned career paths, she decided to become a librarian and currently works for a large public library system. more? »

By day Jodie is one of those evil marketers you're always hearing about. In fact she’s an evil British marketer and probably the inspiration for the next Bond villain. more? &raquo